With the vespertinal rumour and the matutinal lie
Which adorn the lucubrations of the Press),
Then I turn me to the columns where there's nothing to attract,
Or the interest to waken and to whet,
And I revel in a banquet of unmitigated fact
In the _Oxford University Gazette_.

When the Laureate obedient to an editor's decree
Puts his verses in the columns of the _Times_;
When the endless minor poet in an endless minor key
Gives the public his unnecessary rhymes,
When you're weary of the poems which they constantly compose,
And endeavour their existence to forget,
You may seek and find repose in the satisfying prose
Of the _Oxford University Gazette_.

In that soporific journal you may stupefy the mind
With the influence narcotic which it draws
From the Latest Information about Scholarships Combined
Or the contemplated changes in a clause:
Place me somewhere that is far from the _Standard_ and the _Star_,
From the fever and the literary fret,--
And the harassed spirit's balm be the academic calm
Of the _Oxford University Gazette_!

THE PARADISE OF LECTURERS

When you might be a name for the world to acclaim,
and when Opulence dawns on the view,
Why slave like a Turk at Collegiate work
for a wholly inadequate screw?
Why grind at the trade--insufficiently paid--of
instructing for Mods and for Greats,
When fortunes immense are diurnally made
by a lecturing tour in the States?

Do you know that in scores they will pay at the doors--these
millions in darkness who grope--
For a glimpse of Mark Twain or a word from Hall Caine
or a reading from Anthony Hope?
We are ignorant here of the glorious career
which conspicuous talent awaits:
Not a master of style but is making his pile
by the lectures he gives in the States!

With amazement I hear of the chances they
lose--of the simply incredible sums
Which a Barrie might have (if he did not refuse)
for reciting _A Window in Thrums_:
Of the prospects of gain which are offered
in vain as a sop to the Laureate's pride:
Of the price which I learn Mr Bradshaw
might earn by declaiming his excellent Guide.

Columbia! desist from soliciting those who
your bribes and petitions contemn:
Though plutocrats scorn the rewards you
propose, there are others superior to them:
Why burden the pro